Growth of scintillator materials of cerium doped lanthanum bromide single crystals via Bridgman technique

الملخص EN

The capability to distinguish between gamma rays with somewhat different energies by scintillation is of extreme prominence for many applications such as medical imaging, X-rays astronomy, and gamma rays spectroscopy.

Lately, various halide scintillators such as cerium doped lanthanum bromide have been discovered.

There is a great importance in sensitive scintillator materials for use in homeland security and medical applications.

These materials are very hygroscopic and therefore techniques are needed to reduce their hygroscopic nature.

A look for non-hygroscopic materials is needed to advance the scintillator knowledge and technology.

In this paper, I have had an attempt of a crystal growth for a new bulk single crystal of LaBr3:Ce from melt using vertical Bridgman-Stockbarger technique with good conditions such as a growth rate of 10 mm a day.

At the melting point of the mix, the occupied ampoule was lowered down over a temperature ramp of 10ºC/cm.

The growth process via this technique is confirmed to be encouraging and hopeful for growing transparent LaBr3:Ce single crystals with good optical quality.

This work has been done at the Physics laboratory of Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (Normal, Alabama/USA).

Outcomes of creation and crystal growth parameters shall be reported.